Soon to be Leaving Newcastle!

It's that time of the semester again!

Ladies and gentlemen this is our final full week in Newcastle for an entire month!!

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler doing interpretive dance of our excitement.

We are sooo excited because we are 1 week and 4 days away from our big continental Europe trip! Here's the map again for your reference:

Click "Read More" to see the map!

Weekend in London

Hi everyone!

So last weekend Carly and I took our first trip to London!  It was a 3 hour train ride and then a quick tube trip over to our hotel.  On the tube, Carly and I bought Oyster Cards. They're basically debit cards for the tube and they offer discounted rates.  All you do is put money on it as you need it and you can travel the tube! We saved ours for our next London trip. On to our hotel!

We stayed at the Grange Tower Bridge Hotel

This is our room. Two queen beds. Clearly too fancy for the likes of Carly and I. 

Quite possibly the best rain shower ever 

 The fancy chicken burger from room service.

Our hotel was in a prime location.  It was close to a tube station and we could see some famous monuments right out our window!

 I forget what this building is called but it's a famous London building I swear.

 Chew Street?

 Tower Bridge and the Tower of London on the other side of our window.

Click below to read more!

The St. Mary's Singer, Travelling and a New Flatmate

(*Please note: This post was written 2 days ago and I didn't get around to posting it today so that's why the tenses of my sentences may be different)

Hi everyone

I'd like to introduce you all to a new character in the St. Mary's Family, The St. Mary's Singer (or SMS as she will be referred to hence forth).

Ever since I moved into my flat, every once in a while, I'd hear someone singing in the flat next to me.  It was always pretty muffled and I couldn't tell if it was a person singing or loud music playing. My room is at the end of the hallway and beyond my room's wall is a room in the next flat.  Normally it's pretty infrequent and only during the day. But lately it's gotten much worse.

Click 'Read More' to see the rest!

Scotland, twice, and Strange Visitors

Hi again!

Carly and I have been enjoying our extra 3 week vacation after we came home from Barcelona with some visitors!

My mom and brothers came for the New Year holiday and I was so happy to see them!  I went straight from the airport to their hotel since we had both arrived on the same day.  I had to take 2 buses and cross a highway to get there.  My suitcase almost got taken away by the wind because there was some storm raging across Newcastle that day but I managed to make it alive and with my suitcase intact

After touring Newcastle for the first day and a half, we spent a day in Edinburgh taking in the sights.  First we Edinburgh Dungeon.  It's not an actual dungeon but rather a walk-through tour of the various dark, evil and deadly happenings in Edinburgh's past.  It's a chain actually and I had been to the one in London and I thought it wasn't that scary at all so I decided to give this one a go with my family.

*Edinburgh travellers be warned: The Edinburgh Dungeon isn't some tourist-trap fake scary tour thing. It was legitimately terrifying.  It was dark, loud and just all around skin-crawling.  A family of 5 was on our trip and all the children were screaming to leave the entire time (the parents didn't want to leave so they stayed during the whole thing but that's a conversation for another day).

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Home Invasion

While trying to think of something to post about this week, a genius idea came to mind.  I'm going to do something a bit different in this post.  I'm going to tell a story.

Before I begin I need to make clear that what you are about to read is 100% true.  It really happened to me and I did not make this up.  Although I wish I had because it was honestly the most terrifying moment in my life thus far.  So let's begin the tale...

Click Read More to Begin!

Barcelona

Welcome back readers! On to Part 3!

For other posts:

Click here to read about Paris (Part 1 of our vacation)

Click here to read about Madrid (Part 2 of our vacation)

December 24
Barcelona!

We hurried from the airport to our meeting point at the Hard Rock Cafe so we could check in for the hostel. It was an apartment style hostel so there was no check-in area in the building.  Carly and I were blown away by how nice and clean our Barcelona hostel was!

Click Read More to continue!

Madrid! Part 2 of Vacation

On to Part 2 of vacation!

If you need to read different posts:

Click here to read about Paris (Part 1 of our vacation)

Click here to read about Barcelona (Part 3 of our vacation)

December 20
Our first day in Madrid!

We left the terrible overnight train and made our way through the metro system to our hotel. Carly and I decided to buy a 10 trip metro pass to make our travels a little easier. We were impressed with our own cleverness.

Click Read More to continue!